Austria will send eight athletes to the 2010 SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Albufeira, Portugal, on December 12 including 19-year-old Jennifer Wenth.
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| Germany's Steffen Uliczka has shown good form this cross country season and will be a medal contender in the senior men's race at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Albufeira on 12 December. |
Wenth made the finals of both the 1500m and 3000m at the World Junior Championships in Canada this summer, and might be the women to end her country’s long medal-drought at the Championships.
Austria has only won two medals in the past, both in the junior men’s race, when Gunther Weidlinger took the silver in 1997 and then Martin Pröll came third in 2000.
Germany is sending one runner for each of the senior races, Steffen Uliczka and Veronika Pohl, but teams for both the under 23 and junior men’s and women’s races.
Uliczka has shown he is in form with good wins in Dí¤rmstadt two weeks ago and at the European Athletics Cross Country Permit Meeting in Tilburg last Sunday and has a chance of making his own little bit of German athletics history in Albufeira as no senior man from his country has ever won a medal.
Pohl showed she was in good shape in Tilburg as well, finishing fifth, and will make her debut at the Championships.
Sweden’s will be sending 13 runners including under 23 and junior men’s teams as well as runners for the under 23 and junior women’s races.
The top name is arguably Alexander Söderberg, who finished 10th in last year’s under 23 men’s race and is still eligible to run in the same category this year.
Four-time SPAR European Cross Country Championships medallist Mustafa Mohamed, who was on the senior men’s podium three consecutive years between 2006 and 2008, has had some minor injury problems in recent weeks and has decided to pass on the Championships as he is not fit enough.
New Swedish marathon record holder Isabellah Anderson, 18th at last year’s SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Dublin who ran 2:25:10 at the Frankfurt Marathon in October, is training in Kenya ahead of competing in the Dubai Marathon in January.
Switzerland will have at least 12 runners at the Championships. Philipp Bandi and Tamara Winkle will run in the senior men's and women's races respectively, but Stéphane Joly, 10th last year in the senior men's race and 17th in 2008, has also been provisionally selected despite not doing any cross country races so far this winter.
Further information can be found on the Member Federations own websites.
The links to these web sites can be found here.
http://www.european-athletics.org/european-athletics-member-federations-new.html